The Alien on My Shoulder
by Amor
Summary: In a moment of peace, Jeri and Takato discuss Guilmon and themselves. fluffy, Jurato


Disclaimer:I don't own Digimon. Also, the below is ridiculously fluffy, and Jurato. Other than that, nothing objectable,  
but it's probably the most shippy thing I've written.

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There was what was very short of a covert war going on, but on a day like this it seemed to be a world away. The sun struck the spring leaves at just the right angle, showing off the verdant green colour that had been missed during the bitter winter months. The grass was trampled by the feet of children, but sprung up anew, encouraging the thought of life apart from death. A cool breeze, keeping the summer sun from becoming overbearing, blew through said children's hair as they went about their business, electrons running freely around no nucleus.

But today there was a centre to their fun: a young dinosaur Digimon, with a funny sort of warp in his voice and dark red scales that were just soft enough to be fun. His tail wagged with happiness as he chased around one of the eleven-year-olds in an attempt to grab him. These kids had long ago given up tag for more "complex" games, but the introduction of Guilmon made everything seem new again.

Of all of the children, the two that knew Guilmon the best were the ones who weren't interested in him at the moment. Instead, Takato and Jeri sat on a nearby hill, half-reclining as they watched the former's partner played with the more mundane children.

Jeri smiled. "Guilmon always looks so happy."

"Yeah," agreed Takato, staring up at the clouds rolling by in the sky, contemplating things. "It must be nice, eh?"

"What?" asked Jeri, a giggle on her lips. "You getting wistful at the ripe old age of eleven?"

"No, just... being innocent, not knowing stuff, like he does." Takato searched for better words. "What I'm trying to say is, Guilmon's always discovering things, and I think that's a really good feeling. Like, just the other day we were handing out fliers and I had to explain the whole concept to him."

"It is kind of weird," she admitted.

Guilmon finally tagged the girl, but when he stopped to celebrate he got touched right again. Both observers chuckled at that. "And you know what? It was kind of fun, in a weird way. We have all this knowledge, and no way to talk about it because, well, we all know it."

"The alien on your shoulder," Jeri said brightly.

Takato gave her a blank stare. "Huh?"

"Oh, it was just this thing I used to imagine, that there was this alien on my shoulder, who only I could see and hear," she explained shyly. "I had to explain everything about Earth to him, you see. It was really fun."

"Interesting," said Takato. Now that he thought about it, Guilmon really was an alien-- a creature from another world, isolated and knowing nothing about their culture. Or maybe more like a new born child, as he hadn't even known the Digital World (unlike Renamon and Terriermon) before he came into Takato's life. "So whatever happened to that alien?"

"Oh, eventually he fused to his host's arm and became MISTER PUPPET!" Jeri burst into energy at the end, shoving her dog puppet into Takato's face. The surprise caused him to topple over like a stiff board. It had been a while since the dreaded puppet had made an appearance.

Jeri laughed out loud. Takato simply groaned. "Jeri. Not funny."

"It was very funny," she argued as he got back up. "So how about you? You ever think about anything like that when you were a kid?"

"Well, if you're talking about shoulders, I always used to imagine I had an angel and a devil on my shoulders," he explained.  
"You know, like in an old cartoon. They were always arguing with each other, and though sometimes it was just cliché good and evil stuff, sometimes they were expressing my different feelings about things. Like my parents. The angel would always say how good they were taking care of me, and the devil would always say that they weren't being fair."

This caused another round of tinkling laughter from Jeri. "And people call me schizo!"

"Jeri..." Takato said, but he just trailed off and smiled. They really were more alike than you would think. They both had another persona within them, Jeri's came out via her puppet, and Takato had kept his inside him until it had made itself a body of its own.

Beneath him, Guilmon was still playing with his classmates, this time searching for them (his body shade was entirely too hard to hide) in the wooded lot. An involuntary burp from Kazu and Guilmon was on him like a fierce wolf on an innocent. Then he felt an added weight on his right side, and discovered Jeri's body pressed up against his, the quiet moment undoing her hesitation. The sunlight highlighted her gentle, peach-like face and reddish-brown hair cascading over his shoulder as well as it did the plants of the park.

Takato thought about the two people most on his mind, the alien and the angel, and was suddenly happy to be alive. 


End file.
